Gordie Tentrees and Jaxon Haldane play a variety of blues for Windy City Opry

Wednesday, 17 October 2018 10:29
Richard Amery

I caught the end of an exceptional Windy City Opry at the Slice, Wednesday, Oct. 10. While I unfortunately missed opening act Belle Plaine’s set, I was in time for another great show from Yukon musician Gordie Tentrees and Winnipeg’s Jaxon Haldane, who hadn’t played together since April, according to Tentrees.

You wouldn’t have known it if he hadn’t mentioned it. Tentrees played a few old blues/folk flavoured originals and a great cover of Steve Poltz’s “Hey God ,I’ll trade You Donald Trump for Leonard Cohen,” which included lines about trading Trump for numerous artists who have passed on over the past couple years including Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen, Prince and David Bowie. That drew lots of applause from an attentive crowd who has started to trickle home by the time I arrived.

Tentrees sang most of the vocals, though Haldane sang a couple verses of the Trump song, and also played hot, bluesy slide guitar.

Haldane played a couple different cigar box guitars,banjo, mandolin on a song and the saw on the last song of the night. Tentrees played brand new music, Haldane had never heard before, but effortlessly picked them up.

“Deadbeat dad” was a highlight, which wound down their set as was a new song, “Ringside Seat” about Tentrees’ 17 year career in boxing before he took up music, which he noted, got him a free education and the opportunity to tour around the world.